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Wanova is bringing support for Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system and other new features to its Mirage desktop virtualization software.
At the VMworld show in San Francisco Aug. 31, Wanova officials announced that the company has begun shipping Mirage 1.5, which now supports endpoints that are running Windows 7 as well as a wizard for more easily migrating PCs from Windows XP to Windows 7 over the WAN.
The migration capability enables IT administrators to centrally manage the migration of systems to Windows 7, even the desktops of remote workers, without the need for external image servers or boot media.
The new support comes at a time when businesses are beginning to move their PC environments from earlier versions of Windows to Windows 7, which was released in fall 2009.
“It’s not a simple product,” Michele Borovac, vice president of marketing at Wanova, said of Microsoft’s operating system. “Windows 7 is a huge, huge system.”
Wanova, which came out of stealth mode a year ago, is trying to differentiate itself in a highly competitive desktop virtualization market by making it easier to incorporate mobile and remote workers into the virtualized desktop environment. Wanova’s DDV (Distributed Desktop Virtualization) offering aims to balance IT needs with the desires of end users, according to company officials.
The vendor’s Mirage software houses the desktop’s contents in a centralized server, improving manageability and security, while letting users run their desktop workloads at the endpoint devices, giving them a full desktop experience.
Users also can personalize the desktop experience and work offline.
The Mirage Client is installed at the endpoint, while the Mirage Server centralizes all the management aspects in the data center. It also manages and stores the desktop image. Wanova’s DDO (Distributed Desktop Optimization) technology streams the full desktop image to the remote or mobile endpoint over a WAN in a matter of minutes.
Wanova is now looking to expand the reach of Mirage with Version 1.5. For example, along with the support for Windows 7, the company is offering a free five-license evaluation version that can be downloaded from the Wanova Website.
In addition, Mirage 1.5 reduces the storage capacity and throughput requirements, which helps businesses save money.
Borovac said in an interview with eWEEK that the vendor is finding interest in its technology primarily from midsize and larger enterprises, which tend to have a lot of PCs, many of which are laptops, and a large, distributed organization.
“The [primary] requirement is, do you have a lot of laptop users?” she said. “If the answer is yes, then we know we have a potential customer there.”
Wanova also has seen some interest from customers as a partner with VMware, Borovac said. While VMware takes care of the desktop virtualization needs of end users on the LAN, Wanova can built the virtualization environment for the WAN.